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ACTION ALERT: Protect Families

Family unity is sacred. Every person has the right to seek safety. These are some of the most basic tenets of Catholic Social Teaching.

Recent policies from the administration stand in direct contradiction to these core values.

Through its ‘zero tolerance’ policy, the administration is separating families at the U.S./Mexico border. Separated families are often unable to find or speak to each other, or be reunited; some may be deported without each other.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining asylum seekers, often separately from their children.

For more background information on these policies, read our recent “From the Hill.”

These efforts severely limit the ability of vulnerable people coming to the southern border seeking safety to access protection. They go even further by punishing them for doing so. It is not against the law to seek asylum, yet all these policies effectively shut off access to this protection and criminalize those seeking it.

These actions do not reflect the kind of nation we want to be. So how will we respond?

Today thousands of people across the US will join marches, rallies, and vigils to protest the administration’s cruel and inhumane treatment of migrants and asylum seekers.

Join this effort today by calling your Member of Congress to urge them to demand an immediate end to the immoral practices of family separation and prosecution of all people crossing the border, including asylum seekers. We urge them to:

Tell the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not to separate families

Prevent DHS from receiving funding for this harmful and costly practice

Columbans have lived and ministered on the US/Mexico border for over 20 years. We have witnessed the devastating impacts that arbitrary increases in enforcement have on migrants and border communities. It is immoral to make families suffer this kind of traumatic separation of children from their parents, especially in order to obtain some imagined purpose that is thought to justify the measure--that is, to send a message of deterrence to others. As Catholics and members of border communities, we consider it a blessing and an opportunity to serve and support those coming to the United States seeking safety and stability. We believe our federal policy should reflect the same welcome and respect that border communities themselves show, and abstain from this unethical treatment of human beings, made in the image of our Creator.

Raise your voice today in support of the values that should define our immigration policies!